


tell me again

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Honesty, Love, M/M, Memories, Morality, Pillow Talk, Post-Series, Romance, Spies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 04:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3343853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck asks Bryce about the first time they met.</p><p>For this prompt at comment-fic on lj: Chuck/Bryce, The Spy Who Loved Me</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell me again

"Why did you decide to become my friend, back in school?" Chuck asked him. "You never told me." His voice was soft, his body wrapped around Bryce's, tired and sated. 

"We liked the same things."

Chuck snuggled closer. "That's not why," he said. He sounded weary, but not upset at the bald lie.

"I thought... I could learn something."

Chuck looked him in the eyes then. "You were gathering information." It wasn't an accusation. Bryce had long since explained that for people like him, 'natural born spies' as Bryce liked to say, every interaction has a level of spycraft to it, every contact an opportunity for gain.

Bryce looked back at him, steady. "I could tell you were a good person."

Chuck settled a hand, gentle, on Bryce's chest. "You didn't need me to learn how to be a good person, Bryce. You've always been a good person."

Bryce looked away. That wasn't what he meant, and this wasn't an argument he wanted to have yet again.

"What then?" Chuck asked softly.

Bryce looked back. "I wanted to know what it was like to be loved by a good person."

He let the words hang there, let Chuck go through the necessities: anger at the emptiness he saw in Bryce's childhood, compassion (or pity?) for all the years Bryce spent lonely both before and after Stanford.

Chuck had demanded honesty as a condition for forgiving Bryce for being dead (among other wrongs). So now, Bryce was accustomed to it -- avoidance, then Chuck ignoring that avoidance, then honesty, then waiting patiently for Chuck to process the consequences of that honesty.

Finally Chuck said, "Well, if I'm a good person, then you absolutely know what it's like to be loved by one."

"Yeah, I know. It's not like anything else in the world."

Chuck's forehead wrinkled. He looked worried, but he leaned in and kissed Bryce, long, slow, lips lingering in heat. 

Chuck leaned back on his pillow then. "Okay. As long as you get that there is absolutely nothing in the world as good, and okay as infuriating, but there is nothing as strange and perfect and mind-blowing as being loved by Bryce Larkin."

Bryce gave him a little smile. Chuck smiled back, ran a soft thumb across Bryce's lower lip. 

"Also your ass," Bryce said, breaking the moment with a smirk.

"What?"

"When we first met. You can't possibly think I didn't notice your ass."

"I think _you're_ an ass," Chuck said with a laugh.

Bryce shrugged. "I guess we are who we are," he said nonchalantly.

Chuck grinned. "I wouldn't have it any other way."


End file.
